Food delivery scams

Any delivery charge is not a tip paid to your driver.<<

So that $7.99 Medium Pizza you ordered for delivery isn’t really $7.99–but ends up being $11.99. AND NONE OF IT GOES TO THE DRIVER!

A scam worthy of the best Offshore Boiler Room, and yet it’s from Ann Arbor, MI.

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I’ve never assumed the driver gets any of the money from a delivery charge.

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Where you are in the world, do drivers not get paid and have to rely on tips?

I usually use Deliveroo for home deliveries, here in the UK. Their website is an ordering platform which sends the order to the relevent restaurant/takeaway, despatching a Deliveroo driver/rider to collect and deliver. Almost all the restaurants contracting add a “per order” delivery charge. It’s quite clear when ordering what your payment is - absolutely no scam here. I’d usually give the driver a small tip. I’m old fashioned in that respect - I tip taxi drivers as well (my BiL who is a taxi driver says I’m a rarity and he can go whole shifts without a tip - not even the “keep the change” sort)

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Not sure how calling a delivery charge what it is could be a scam. I’ve never assumed “shipping and handling” charges go directly to the actual shippers and handlers. There are companies (like Grubhub) that make fake websites to divert orders from a restaurant’s actual website, or keep all or part of a tip for themselves without customers’ knowledge. That’s a scam.

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Here in the U.S Upper Midwest, DoorDash, Uber Eats and all the other “delivery” services, do not yet have a strangle hold on food delivery from smaller, independent retailers. The sandwich shops, pizza makers and other convenience food providers depend on, and are constantly advertising for drivers to deliver their foods to waiting customers.

So when one of these small independents tacks on a “delivery” charge to a customer order–but doesn’t share even a portion of the receipt with the delivery driver, that is (my definition of) a scam.

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Delivery drivers need to be paid fairly, that’s for sure. And if the driver has to use their own vehicle, are they compensated for its use? Hmmm.

Your post brought to mind a story I heard yesterday about Instacart, where delivery folks who are the face of the service feel the financial squeeze from changes in the platform. :cry:

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Not here in metro Detroit.

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For balance, this disturbing report: https://www.npr.org/2019/07/30/746600105/1-in-4-food-delivery-drivers-admit-to-eating-your-food

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:astonished:

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I live near Boston. To clarify, delivery drivers do get paid but not much. It’s a job like hairdresser, waitron, or newspaper delivery: tips are a significant part of their income.

I imagine that some portion of a restaurant delivery charge goes toward what it pays its drivers, but certainly the percentage will vary according to the owners and whether it’s an independent place or a member of a chain. I tip 15-20% of the cost of the order, more if the weather is bad. For grocery delivery, $5-10, depending not on the total cost but on the number and weight of the bags, and the weather.

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